Research Proposal



Research Proposal

Title

Enhancing infection control practices in order to promote occupational health and safety in clinical placements where staff shortage is also a major contributor towards wide spreading infections. 'Nurses' are the target population of this research.

Introduction

The rationale behind this study is to assess the current levels of infection control practices and also its impact towards occupational health and safety in clinical placements especially where the clinics are facing the problem of staff shortage. While assessing the current levels of infection control practices, the need for the enhancement and improvement in areas will be observed (Slyne, Phillips & Parkes, 2012 Pp. 24-27). The purpose of this research is to make the nurses aware about how important it is for them to realize and implement the infection control practices for the quality care provision to patients and also from the viewpoint of occupational health and safety. Further, this study will enhance the knowledge of nurses about the practices they can adopt in order to promote the infection control practices by maintaining their own personal hygiene in the clinical placement (Klainberg & Dirschel, 2010 Pp. 55-220).

The main assumptions of this research would include the aspect of staff shortage. Basically, the purpose of this research is to correlate the aspect of staff shortage to the spread of infections. If there is enough staff present in the clinical placements, they will get more time to focus on personal and occupational hygiene thus restricting the spread of infections (Potera, 2009 P. 15). The basic assumption of this research is that staff shortage leads to immense spread of infections. Moreover, another assumption of this research is that occupational health and safety is directly related to the infection control practices.

Nurses play an important part in clinical settings by providing quality health care to the patients and therefore it is extremely important for nurses to realize the importance of occupational health and safety and most importantly nurses need to be aware about the practices they can adopt for the purpose of enhancing the infection control practices within the clinical settings (Kathleen & Toros, 2011 Pp. 250-270). Nurses need to make clinical judgments to provide a balance between research evidence present in the particular diseases and nurse's own personal understanding of the situations. Critical thinking has been given extreme importance in the field of nursing. The basic job description of nurses is to provide the best possible care and environment to their patients which help them improve their conditions in a more rapid manner and for the purpose of providing best possible care, nurses need to focus on infection control practices (Swenne & Katrin, 2012 Pp. 114-119).

The significance of the study to nursing practice and evidence based practice would be the increased awareness among nurses about how important the infection control practices are. Moreover, this research will also facilitate nurses to make better decision regarding the adaptation of infection control practices. Further, the aspect of occupational health and safety will also be explored and clarified to the ...